


Saudade

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 05:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17822666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: To Johnny Suh. A boy who wished to live.true love is felonious… You take someone’s breath away… You rob them of the ability to utter a single word… You steal a heart.--- My Sister's Keeper





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> yes, that's a Harry Potter reference there because I'm a potterhead :)

The curtain flied away from the opened glass doors to the veranda, creating waves of silk materials, white, against the darkness of the room. The owner of the said room sat on the edge of his delicately made bed, untouched, hands on his sides, supporting him against the bouncy spring bed he used to deeply sleeping on, and his gaze was fixed to the other darkness across the gate of his curtain. There was nothing particular for him to look at, but he stared there anyway. He stared as if someone would fly into his room on the twentieth stores and said peek-a-boo goofily and followed an I-got-you loudly. He felt numb. But nothing actually chilled him cold, or held him too close. That was the point, that he did not feel anything.

He did not even know what had happened or what’s wrong with himself. He just felt so sick. And nothingness. Like someone created a big hole through him, a hole that did not bleed. But he did not know why, and how, he felt that way. 

He was suddenly into this world where he did not care, where nothing held him to stay, but at the same time made him could not move even just a bit. And it tired him out, that he did not want to feel that way anymore. If only he could ask for it.

 

****

 

“Everything is going to be better, you just have to be willing to get better, hyung,” Renjun said, with that white tray of sick people food he deeply despised on his hand. The other then pushed it in front of him, “it will take time, indeed, but you need to keep trying.”

Renjun visited him once a day, at least. He mostly came alone, except for some times when Jeno and Jaemin tagged along, to make sure he ate well and got rest and not to be stressed. Renjun was his neighbor's child with whom he grew up with and they had practically known each other for life, though there were no photos or anything to proof their friendship. He was both grateful and annoyed at the same time. 

He knew Renjun did what he did because he cared, of course, but how could he did not feel annoyed being treated like a thrown away sick puppy drenched under the rain? And moreover, it’s Renjun who looked like a pitiful puppy with his huge round moist eyes looking intensely through your eyes. Though in reality he was actually scanning what were you thinking about, correctly and perfectly, that even him sometimes found it creepy.

“I am perfectly fine, don’t worry,” he grumbled under his breath, nose burnt thanks to the hot steam from the specially made Jeno’s mushroom asparagus cream soup.

Renjun amusedly rose his eyebrow, completely judging him, “I cannot put you into the ‘perfectly fine’ and healthy instead of freaking sick category, or do you elderly had different category?”

He glared. Renjun did not care. Instead, he threatened him to finish his food to the last drop, piece, and bit.

 

 

 

Once the night fell and Renjun, and sometimes Jeno and Jaemin who tagged along in claim that Renjun needed to be guarded against the crazy night predators and because they found his collection of games and comic books were awesome, had left, he fell into the weird nothingness again.

He hated the feeling, but he did not know how to get rid of it. He had asked his doctor, Jaehyun, if there was anything wrong with his inner organs, or maybe to be more specific, his brain. But Jaehyun confirmed that there was nothing wrong with his body. He was perfectly recovered and fine.

Of course he didn't tell Renjun about this.

One day he tried to leave his apartment, thinking that maybe it was the situation and atmosphere in the quiet apartment that he was sick of and needed a change of. But no, he couldn’t even move his feet to cross the line of metallic doors of the elevator, nor looking down to the stairs. Though he knew it was crazy to even think that he could go down from the twentieth stories by the stairs. But he couldn’t move himself more than that. It was not only a one time failure, he failed so many times that he lost count.

It’s crazy, but he had no control over it.

 

 

 

“Hyung, you haven’t slept again, have you? How long it has been?” Renjun was not going to miss any small detail about him that he wondered how he did it.

He was sitting on the sofa, Renjun was sitting on the carpeted floor down next to him and he was not even looking at him, his gaze fell on the magazine filled with many green recipes. He knew this only meant there would be more Jeno's cooking trials he would be fed on. Renjun dropped by again after college, like usual, with no Jeno or Jaemin around this time. And he brought a box he hadn’t touch since the time he put it down on the dining table. He got a feeling Renjun wouldn’t let him touch it anyway. And he got the feeling that Renjun was not going to let down the question unanswered.

“It’s been a while,” he finally confessed, eyes flicking at the box on his dining table, still.

A deep and tired sigh was heard. “What happened?”

That was a question he wanted to ask himself as well. What happened to him? What was wrong with him? “I don’t know.”

This time Renjun turned to look up to him. But he noticed Renjun was making a neat bend on the corner of the page showing a total colourful dish on a big pastel crème bowl before he did. Renjun, like usual, looked straight into his eyes, with his puppy-like moist huge round eyes. “Tell me what you feel, hyung,” he asked. Demanded.

He looked back down, felt that complicated tightness in his chest when he breathed, unsure how to explain how he felt. “I feel nothing, just blank, and hollowed. And I just cannot sleep. That’s all.”

Renjun sighed. “I shouldn't be doing this, but-” he stood up from his spot and walked to get the box on the dining table. Renjun put it down on his lap, “open it,” he said.

So he opened it and was surprised to see a big, old fashioned music box. “What is this?” He turned the ratchet lever, and soon sweet soothing melodies resonated through the room. The melody sounded familiar. Had he randomly heard that somewhere?

“You used to use this to put you to sleep, hyung. It might help again somehow.”

 

 

 

That night he amazingly fell fast asleep. He was watching a movie with Renjun, of course, when he felt his eyes stubbornly closing and he was gone. He dreamt a very vivid dream that it seemed real. He was on his back, looking at the clouds, and was laughing hard, happily. And someone else was there, another boy, but he was not Renjun. The other boy had laughed along with him, just as hard, but his laughs were like melodies to his ears he didn't want it stop. Maybe they had told each other jokes, or random nonsense things. He did not understand why they were laughing in the first place, again, but he liked it. To laugh. With him.

When he was laughing with that boy, he didn't even know, but the world stopped spinning and the time stopped ticking. And they were there, at a place where they were just little cosmos in the big world, rebelling from how everything should have been.

For the first time ever, even if it was just in his dream, he had felt something else. Something warm, something delicate but persistent, and something he did not quite understand. But it was warm…

“Why are you crying?”

“I am not crying," he denied, "in fact I am really happy right now.”

“But you are crying,” he squinted his eyes as the drops of his tears were dabbed softly by that stranger’s fingers.

“I don’t know. But I am happy, very happy.”

“And why are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shall I guess it? But you need to give me a present if I get it right!”

“Why do I need to give you a present for guessing what I am feeling?”

He laughed. He smiled.

 

 

 

“Why are you crying?” the question was the exact same but it felt completely different. Jaehyun stared at him intensely, worries visible in his eyes.

“I… don’t know,” he answered, lying a little bit wouldn’t hurt, he supposed. “How long are we going to do this thing?”

Jaehyun looked at him seriously. “Until the time when you can stop lying. Until you can accept and willing to open your heart.”

Jaehyun was his doctor, his therapist, he realized long ago, but he thought Jaehyun was insane.

 

 

 

“You have to let it go, or else it will be hard to everybody, hyung,” Jeno said one day, while Renjun and Jaemin were busy chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Jeno looked as if he had been eager to say that to him.

He stared at Jeno confusedly. What did exactly he has to let go? Renjun had told him before that he was refusing to get better. Jaehyun told him he was lying to his self. And now Jeno told him he was holding on something and was refusing to let this thing go. What exactly people was talking about?

“People will go but memories will stay. But holding too tightly while demanding it to go away is too cruel, hyung. Please stop it. We are all losing.”

At that Renjun entered the living room to call for Jeno and Jeno acted as if he didn’t say anything.

 

 

 

He fell asleep again. The pas couple of days ever since he got the music box he had been sleeping nicely, peacefully. He hadn't dream again since that one time. But tonight was another day.

The boy whose laughs were nice was with him again. Only this time he didn't laugh. He went to sit next to him, and only then he realized how tall the other boy was. “What are you waiting for?”

He crossed his brows, he was sure the question was meaant for him, because there were no other people but them in that space. But he did not understand that question. What was he waiting for? He was not waiting for anything, was he?

“I am not waiting for anything,” he voiced that out.

The other boy laughed. Oh how he liked the way it sounded. “Nonsense. This is the station, how could you are not waiting for anything?”

Just then he realized that he was right. They were in a station he had never been, sitting on one of the chairs put on the platforms. The weird thing was that this station was very quiet, very bright and just blindingly white. There was no other sound but theirs. He was not even sure there was anyone else but them there. But what station was this empty?

“What can I possibly be waiting for here?”

“Oh there are so many things you can wait for. You can wait for your train to come, or maybe for someone who is going to ride the train,” then he paused, “or maybe those who are already on the train and are ready to go on.”

He turned silent. What was he waiting for?

“You know, sometimes the truth hurts and real life sucks, but you have to live on and keep going, because you are alive, still…” and with that the boy was gone.

He woke up and he cried out loud, because it was true; real life sucked and it hurt.

 

 

 

He asked Renjun some mornings after, when he had prepared his heart and was finally ready. “What am I looking for? What am I waiting for?”

Renjun looked taken aback for a short time before a proud wave was visible in his eyes. “Hyung, you are back,” he said.

“I never left,” he grumbled, talking to Renjun was hard sometimes because Renjun acted like he knew everything he didn't, and he hated the feeling. But maybe Renjun was right after all. That he did knew things more than he himself knew right now. “But what am I missing? What did I lost and waiting for?”

Renjun took out a book from his bag. An old book, which looked like it hadn't been touched for a quite long time. He opened the cover and on the first page was slipped a photo of a group of people. There was a little Renjun there. And there also was Jaehyun. And Jeno was also in the frame, smiling widely with his eyes almost invicible. And there was him. And a boy he didn't know.

“You have to open your heart, you have to face the truth first, and you will find what you are asking for…”

 

 

 

He stared at the photo for a long time before falling asleep. And that unknown boy greeted him again in his dream. This time he was smiling wider and his face was not as unfocused as before. And suddenly he knew him; he was the unknown boy in the photo.

“Hey!”

“Hey,” he said back.

“How are you?”

He thought about it a little. How was he? “I think I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Great! I am good too,” no one actually asked him back, “I am glad to finally see you again.”

“Why?”

“Why? Of course it’s because I missed you. I nearly thought you’d lock me out forever and not coming back.”

He had lots of thoughts in his head. And it’s weird because how could he think in his dream. Moreoverhow could he knew this was a dream and he had a very full control of himself, and was aware that this was not the reality. What was this place, actually? And who was that boy actually?

“I am a piece of memory,” the boy smiled understandingly, like if he could read minds, he thought the boy really could, “I am a piece of memory stored deep, deep down in your heart. Then I am manifested into the objected thing for you to see.”

“My memory? Do I have a memory about you?”

“Do you?” the boy asked back. The question left him feeling uneasy, as if he had been forgetting something very important and there was the boy to remind him about it.

“And where is this place?” he looked at his surrounding, the bed of high grasses and white lilies under the bright sun, which was not burning his skin. “This is not a dream, is it?”

The other smiled again. “I don’t know, what do you think about this place?”

He crossed his brows. “I… have no idea. I thought this was a dream, but I don’t think so. It feels just too real to be a dream.”

“Well, it is not… I cannot tell you because this is a top secret. But you can just think of this as something that happened in your head.”

“Something that happened in my head?”

“Yes.”

“So this is unreal? This is not a dream, but it is still unreal? Is it just my imagination or something?”

“Because it happened in your head doesn’t mean it has to be unreal, is it?”

They fell into a silence. There was no other sound but the whizzing sound the grasses made for a while. He stared into nowhere, but he felt the other's gaze on him and frighteningly, he didn't feel weird at all. He rather felt comfortable, and contented.

“I,” the other suddenly started, “I am going to break the rules for this… but seriously, I cannot see another way for it to work…”

He looked at the other and their eyes met. He felt something was pulling him; something was tugging at his hollow heart and filled it with the warmth from the sun. So much that they spilled out from that hole previously open there. And at the same time a huge wave of sadness, sorrow, washed him. He was left confused.

“Ten,” the boy calls, “Chittapon Leechaiyapornkul, it was heavenly to be with you. But you cannot stay here. This is not your stop yet. Go through, I will not hold on you.”

He cried. His view was fading, but that voice resonated through his whole existence.

“I need you, but not now. I love you.”

 

 

 

 

“I figure you have it figured out, don’t you?” Jaehyun said, softly.

He nodded. His eyes were sore, and he was on his bed, on his messed up bed, and Jaehyun was freaking there inside his room. But he understood.

“Are you ready for it?”

He stared at the white lily he was holding on. And he nodded.

 

 

 

Months ago, the room broke with cries. The woman was crying out loud for his son. She was calling out for the doctors, for the nurses, for anyone, to help her son. To stop that long flat beep sound produced by the machine next to the hospital bed. On the other side of the room was another boy, on another bed, lying also unconsciously, with the machine beeping stagnantly, slow.

This was not your stop yet.

Go through. And wait for me.


End file.
